Tag Archives: sidewalk

Photographs: England, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

Green Shop, Night

September 2, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The lights of a small market at night along a London street

When traveling I’m fascinated by the relationships between familiar things and the different ways they exist in other places. This is true within the US — for example, corner stores tend to be rather different things here in Silicon Valley than they are in, say New York City. But it is even more so when traveling overseas, as I saw on our recent five-week travels that took us from New York to London, Paris, Heidelberg, and several places in Italy. The little store, open into the night, is everywhere. But what you might find there is different, except that all provide a bit of a beacon to passersby in the night.

I made a series of exposures of this brightly lit store, set between other closed and darkened businesses. All of the other images included quite a few people, in some of them essentially crowds were passing by. I chose to share this one because it is almost unpopulated, with the exception of a clerk visible inside the store and a man approaching at the edge of the frame. The light of the store spill out onto and beyond the sidewalk and spreads beyond the confines of the store itself.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: England, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

Night Pedestrians, London

September 1, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pedestrians walk through an area of shops at night, London

I made this photograph on a night when we attended a concert, a somewhat atypical one for us. The event was connected to a group that is, if we understood correctly, trying to counteract the negative prospects of Brexit and related social issues in Great Britain and perhaps beyond. It featured an extremely wide variety of performers, ranging from an opera singer accompanied by a small orchestra to jazz and more.

After the concert we left the venue and headed to a tube station. One of my main goals for this visit was to do some night street photography, so I pulled out my camera and looked for potential subjects as we passed through a commercial district with lots of small shops. Not surprisingly, there were tons of people out and about, and when I saw these two buildings I figured it would only be a matter of a short time before someone interesting walked into the frame. I ended up with the central copy walking almost in lockstep, plus a pair of more furtive figures in the shadows near the edges of the frame.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Italy

Street Vendors Standing on Sidewalk

August 29, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

I don’t completely understand the economics of these street vendors, but I do know that I’ve been seeing them all over Europe — at least where we’ve been and at least in big cities, and without fail in any locale that attracts lots of tourists. They were around in London. In Paris they seem to have perfected the art of evading the police while selling little Eiffel Tower trinkets, and here in Florence they sell odd little toys, selfie sticks, and “art.”

In Florence I mostly saw a small range of trinkets for sale: prints of somewhat gaudy paintings (more on that subject in another forthcoming photograph), the ubiquitous selfie sticks, some little balloon-like toy that they smash on the ground and allow to resume its original shape, and lighted toys to toss in the air. These guys can’t possibly be making a lot of money, and I don’t envy them having to make a living this way. This small group of them was standing and waiting in a shaded area right next to an area extremely crowded with tourists.

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G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

Photographs: Italy

Caffe’ La Curva #1

August 22, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sunday morning visitors outside Caffe’ La Curva, Panzano

On this lazy Sunday morning in the Chianti region of Italy we had gotten up, made coffee, and sat around for a couple of hours before we remembered that we really needed to do some shopping… and that many things would be closed here today. We did some quick research and found that there was a market in this little town a half hour from our location and that it would be open only for another hour and a half. It was suddenly time to go!

Before we arrived we began to see cars parked everywhere along the road and parking wasn’t easy to find — the result, no doubt, of this being the only market open in the area on this morning. We found parking and walked up the small square, which was jam-packed with shoppers and others. The road continued on into the town, where there was just barely enough room for its two lanes to fit between buildings as it curved past and over the high point on the ridge. Across the street I saw this small caffe’, aptly named for the narrow curve, and I waited to photograph people coming and going.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: sidewalk

Green Shop, Night

Night Pedestrians, London

Street Vendors Standing on Sidewalk

Caffe’ La Curva #1

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.